First Time
by hersheysmusicandtwilight
Summary: It is common knowledge that James ended up asking Lily to go out with him roughly a million times before she actually agreed...but how did it start, exactly? One-shot


Hey eveybody! I'm fourteen, and I want to be a writer some day. Obviously, its going to take a lot of work to get me there, which is why ANYTHING you have to say on ANYTHINg I write is much apreciated.

This is just a little one-shot of what I think hppened the first time James asked Lily out. I'm going to be writing a lot more, hopefully, so keep a look out!

"So, James," Alice asked, in a pitiful attempt to sound off hand, "are you seeing anyone?"

Alice Greenley was a compactly built girl with voluminous, tangly black hair and big blue eyes that she usually lined with pink or purple or green. Or any bright color, really. Her appearance matched her personality to a T, which was loud and outlandish, not unlike James at all. They'd probably make a cute couple. She had been flirting with him all during lunch, much to the annoyance of the other three Marauders.

Not that James much cared. "Actually, Alice," he said, chewing thoughtfully, "I do."

Alice raised her eyebrows keenly. "Really?" she asked. "Who?"

"Lily Evans," James replied, completely deadpan as he told the lie.

Unlike his darling friends, all of whom were apparently suffering from the same sudden coughing fit.

Alice pretended they that they weren't there, as she had been for the past hour. "Thats…erm…interesting," she managed at last, failing to conceal her surprise. If ever there was a boy and a girl who were unlikely to fall for each other, it was Lily and James.

Lily was freckled, gawky potions geek with a no-nonsense attitude about _everything._ And James…well, he was nothing _but _nonsense. She couldn't even handle sitting next to him during transfiguration, and now she'd agreed to go on a date with him?

It couldn't be so.

Which was by Alice stood up and bid James good bye, off to find Laura Windle, Lily's best friend and one of Alice's most common sources of gossip. After all, Alice was pretty girl. She never had a hard time getting a date, but news like this? Gobsmacking. And if she were the one who got to spread it all around….

She may never get an opportunity like this again.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Sirius rounded on James. "You're going out with Evans?" he demanded incredulously.

James shrugged. "Not yet," he said absentmindedly, "but I will be. Whenever I get around to asking her out."

Sirius, if anything, looked more blown away that Alice. "But…she's…" he stuttered, "I mean-she's her."

"Excellent observation, Black," Peter approved.

"Sirius," James said, giving his friend a knowing look, "have you actually _seen _Miss Evans since summer ended?"

"No," Sirius shrugged, unperturbed. "How much can a girl change in two measly months?"

"Hey, look, she's over there." Remus pointed down the table, where a gaggle of girls could be seen and heard chatting amiably about their summer vacations. "Guess we were too busy being ignored to see her come in," he added, giving James a very pointed look.

Which James ignored, as always.

Sirius craned his neck, eyes scanning the crowd. "Oh," he said suddenly, eyes popping in recognition. "Oh…Wow."

"Wow indeed," James agreed, following his gaze and grinning at what he sw.

Gone was the gangly, stringy carrot-topped girl with a gap in her teeth and a flat chest. She'd been replace by a full figured, auburn haired angel who obviously had taken a crash course at make-up applications over the summer and who flashed her newly perfect teeth at a passing Ravenclaw. She was beautiful, she was a Gryffindor…

She hated James.

But really, how much did that matter, in the grand scheme of things?

"I," Sirius declared, thumping James on the back, "approve."

"Duh," Remus muttered under his breath. "You're a heterosexual male with eyes."

"You shall pop the question tonight!" Sirius said firmly.

Peter grinned. "You make it sound like it's a marriage proposal or something."

James waggled his eyebrows. "Who says it isn't?"

That night, James stayed late in the common room, waiting for everyone to go upstairs. Lily was notorious for her late night studying, and he knew it was his best bet for getting alone with her. Females, he noticed, tended to travel in tightly knit packs, and Lily was no exception.

When the final seventh year had gone up, stretching and yawning, James took her place next to Lily by the fireplace. "Hey, Evans," he said.

Lily glanced up from her book. "Oh," she returned to her book, just managing to hide it when her upper lip curled in disdain. "I didn't realize you were still up."

"Yeah, well," James waved his hand airily. "I wasn't tired. And I had something to ask you."

That got her attention. Lily and James never asked each other _anything._ She closed the book this time, and peered at James with a mixture of dread and apprehension. "You…do?"

"Yep." Either James was incredibly confident, or he just hadn't noticed, but he seemed completely unphased by her reluctance to talk to him. Probably it was a bit of both.

"Will you go out with me?"

The words rolled off his tongue easily, without any hesitation or fear of rejection. Rejection had never been a possibility for James, so he didn't know how to recognize the signs. But to any one else, as the silence between them grew more and more dense, as two small splotches of red appeared on either of Lily's cheeks, it would have been painfully obvious what was coming.

"No," Lily said finally, just managing to keep the fury from her tone.

She wasn't n idiot. She knew how far she'd come in the past few months. She was classic ugly duckling turned swan. But she didn't expect people to be _that _thick. How in the world James had thought it acceptable to ask her out just because she was better looking now without even giving the pretence of having other motives…

Well. She didn't suppose she should have been surprised.

"Good night, James," She said crisply, closing her book and walking quickly up to her dormitory.

As James watched her disappear, a slow-and completely undaunted-smirk formed on his lips.

Poor Lily. If only she had known how much James liked a challenge….


End file.
